Unbuckled son put al-Marri investigation in motion

Friday

Oct 30, 2009 at 12:01 AMOct 30, 2009 at 10:44 AM

A 5-year-old boy looking out the back window of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri's car while riding unrestrained piqued a Peoria police officer's interest just more than eight years ago. The resulting traffic stop seemed routine enough, but it was the briefcase full of money at an East Peoria motel that drew the attention of Officer Greg Metz. "It was like in the movies, a briefcase with bundles of money. He pulled out one and began to peel off bills to pay for his bond," Metz said. "What the hell was that?"

Andy Kravetz

A 5-year-old boy looking out the back window of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri's car while riding unrestrained piqued a Peoria police officer's interest just more than eight years ago.

The resulting traffic stop seemed routine enough, but it was the briefcase full of money at an East Peoria motel that drew the attention of Officer Greg Metz.

"It was like in the movies, a briefcase with bundles of money. He pulled out one and began to peel off bills to pay for his bond," Metz said. "What the hell was that?"

Metz called the department's FBI liaison. That set into motion events that culminated Thursday when al-Marri was sentenced to eight years and four months in federal prison for providing support to al-Qaida.

Al-Marri pleaded guilty in April to providing material support to al-Qaida by volunteering to come to the United States to undertake a mission. However, the government has never said what that mission was or when it was to occur. Al-Marri's attorneys have hinted their client was too low on the totem pole to have such knowledge.

The case has also tackled the issue of whether people designated by the government as "enemy combatants" should get credit for time served in detention before their trial.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm sentenced al-Marri on Thursday to less than the 15 years sought by federal prosecutors for his ties to al-Qaida. The judge said he was compelled to give consideration to that time spent in military custody - the government had opposed that - saying it was necessary "in order to reflect respect for the law and reflect just punishment."

"We are defined as a people by how we deal with difficult and unpopular legal issues," Mihm said.

The case began with Metz on Sept. 13, 2001. It was two days after the terror attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. The country was gripped in fear of what might be coming, and people of Arab descent were being profiled.

Metz said none of that played into his traffic stop. He was headed south on Sterling Avenue in Peoria about 4 or 5 p.m. when he saw al-Marri's car. A boy was looking at him through the back window, obviously unrestrained. After al-Marri failed to signal as he made a turn onto a residential street near a strip mall just south of Interstate 74, and rolled through a stop sign, Metz pulled him over.

Al-Marri was polite and courteous, but his story didn't pass muster. He said he stopped in front of a house that had a "For Sale" sign in the front yard because he wanted to rent it. Metz ran his information and found he had a 10-year-old warrant for a DUI charge. And there was something else.

"That day was the last day you could sign up for classes at Bradley University, and he (al-Marri) had told me he paid cash. Now, what kind of person carries that type of cash?" Metz said.

The Bradley story, the fact that al-Marri was from the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar and the 10-year-old warrant were clues that something was up. But al-Marri was headed to jail on the warrant, so the officer was focused on trying to find a place for the young child to stay.

After they went to al-Marri's motel room in East Peoria and saw that briefcase full of money, Metz decided something was definitely not right. He had met a Tazewell County deputy at the Super Eight motel and listened as al-Marri spoke through the door to someone on the other side in Arabic. When they entered, whoever was in the room was in the bathroom. They dropped the child off and carted al-Marri off to the jail.

But as Metz was eating dinner with his wife a hour or so later, the al-Marri situation kept nagging at him. He called the FBI liaison, and the rest is history. Three months later, al-Marri would be picked up on a federal material witness warrant and spend the next seven years and 10 months in county jails, federal detention centers and a U.S. Naval brig in South Carolina.